


Pep Talk

by StoryCloud



Category: Kung Fu Panda - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Pep talks, monkey and po are best buddies don't tell me otherwise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-14 21:09:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13016175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StoryCloud/pseuds/StoryCloud
Summary: Drabble. Based on a deleted scene; in the aftermath of a lunch gone wrong, Po is ruminating and Monkey is more perceptive than he lets on.





	Pep Talk

**Author's Note:**

> (This was written a while back, decided to post it here.)

It’s funny, how basic domestic issues weighed more heavily on Po’s mind that the imminent destruction of everything he loved. Which happened less than a year ago. Actually. Actually no, it wasn’t funny.

Thing is, Po could deal with that. He didn’t think he could, but in the end it all came out pretty okay. Though Gongman city had lost its ancestral home (Shen had no heirs, so there really wasn’t  anyone left to _own_ it but still) and Master Thundering Rhino…died. But China was saved, his friends had been saved. Pandas avenged.

It had been personal back then. Po had felt a raw, cold kind of anger that didn’t sit well with the rest of him but it had made him stronger. A singe in his stomach. He’d felt it merge with the sheer _wonder_ he’d felt as seeing all the masters come together and he’d caught a canon ball with his paw.

Granted it had set on fire but he carried the burns with _pride_.

But now he was going to pieces over some little thing like this _? C’mon!_

“Its’ the future of Kung Fu.” He said it out loud. Simple words, yeah, but it was true. Being labelled a teacher wasn’t so big. Well, he’d taught a bunch of little bunnies about lore…but that was _lore._ That wasn’t handing them an axe they could chop their itty bitty toes off with.

Po grimaced.

Why couldn’t he just be a _lore_ teacher? How did he explain that he couldn’t explain how he’d learned Kung Fu in pretty much a weak and kind of went from there?

“Po?”

The panda stopped short, near sucking in his lips like he’d been caught nicking something from the cookie jar. Slowly, he peered upward and there –

“Oh hey, Monkey, how’s it going?”

Wait, what was he doing here?

It was then that Po realised that he’d walked a full circle around the village, late into the night, and ended up back outside his dad’s – one of his dad’s – noodle restaurant. And Monkey was hanging from the entrance archway with his hands behind his head as if he’d been waiting there the whole time for him.

The primate’s features were set in a concerned look but not _overly._ More like a bewildered kind. “You okay, man?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Po found his paw going to his neck, then his ears, in a quick succession. “Just not really hungry is…”

He’d done everything to imitate a casual pose, he’d rocked back on his heels and swung his arms, peering at the horizon, but then Monkey’s eyes went wide and he knew he’d gone for a hit and miss that missed _badly_.

Monkey dropped down from the arch, landing upright as if it were as easy as breathing, “Po…look, what if you just said what was eating _you_ so you can eat other things?”

He’d half-smiled there. Neither of them were good at this…sort of talk and Po had to wonder if he’d been put up to it or if he’d put himself up to it because no one would trust monkey with such serious things as pep-talks. Po realised he hadn’t answered quickly enough them and sighed, pulling a paw down his face.

“I dunno, Monkey, maybe it’s all this teacher stuff.” Monkey nodded, lips wrinkling in a ‘yeah, yeah’ manner – because they’d _all_ know that. “I mean I’ve taught the story stuff before, and kids are pretty neat but…” Po lifted up his paws, making a waving gesture. Then he let them fall when he failed to find the word.

His sigh made Monkey’s eyes glance downwards, and as the panda came to lean on the wall his friend hopped onto the stack of crates beside it to be at better level.

They sat in silence for a moment.

“…How’d you do it all on your own, Monkey?”

Monkey looked to him in slight surprise, brows up. Po kept his eyes on his feet. “Back…before.”

Ah, before. Before Kung Fu. When he too was just a little animal in a little village and the world didn’t extend beyond that. Monkey chewed the inside oh his lip and Po could tell he was thinking hard.

“…I guess I tried not to think about it. I tried to laugh about being alone, you know? Wasn’t the best idea.” He grinned hastily and Po felt his lips twitch up despite themselves. But Monkey’s grin faded on its own merit, and his eyes slid away.

“I tried not to think of it as being ‘on my own, looking after myself’. I played pranks - told jokes. Tried to keep myself busy…” He counted off each elongated finger, but paused on the last one. “…I guess I had no choice and in the end I…took each day at a time.”

His grin returned then, as if he’d made a breakthrough. Po mulled over it. One day at a time, huh? But how do you take one day at a time when your bad teaching could result in the protectors of China being inept at Kung Fu?

“Are ya really gonna tell me that the first lesson didn’t suck?” Po asked, with a half humorous, half sarcastic expression. His head remain bent. Monkey shrugged at him hopelessly and smiled because he knew he couldn’t stop himself – but it was apologetic.

“Hey, man, that’s just ‘cause you were trying to be like Shifu too much.”

Po blinked.

The primate hopped back over to the archway. Inside, Pop noted that the tables were bare and everyone else had gone. Maybe his Dad was asleep, too. No lights aside from the lantern Monkey had just plucked off the overhang.

“C’mon, bro. We still need to sort out that dumping record.”

Ah yes. How could Po forget his responsibilities so soon? With a quiet laugh, he began striding along; Monkey swinging oh-so-casually alongside him.

Their figures were two black shapes bobbing further and further into the dark.

“So…where’d everybody go?”

“Welll…after you stormed out – palace, market.”

“My dad’s at the palace and the guys are at the market.”

“…Uh…other way around, Po.”

“…Yeah, got that.”


End file.
